Schools fear waning interest in study abroad

The U.S. college student's semester or year abroad was once a carefree plunge into new cultures and languages, an exciting whirl of fresh sights, tastes and ideas.

The excitement is still there, but the trip is far less carefree today. Leaders of study-abroad programs are thinking as much about crisis management as about new worlds for students to explore. Many fear events will deter students from signing up in the future.

Since Sept. 11, U.S. students in other countries have been showered with warnings about looking "too American"--like wearing college sweatshirts--speaking too loudly in English, going to American hangouts, sightseeing in large groups and traveling without leaving program directors an itinerary.

To some extent, such strictures are familiar from past acts of terrorism or surges of anti-American sentiment, but they have been strongly re-emphasized since the attacks here.

So far, the attacks and their aftermath have had only a minor effect at most schools. The majority of students who were going this fall left before Sept. 11. But some overseas study coordinators are concerned about a drop-off in applications for next spring as they field anxious calls from jittery parents.

Among schools that did see an immediate impact were Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, both of which started their fall terms in late September. About 5 percent of undergraduates at the two schools who had planned to spend time in cities such as Rome, Paris and London opted not to go. One NU student already in London returned home.

Northwestern junior Sheila Gogate was supposed to leave Cleveland to study at the Sorbonne in Paris in the late afternoon of Sept. 11. She had said all her goodbyes and packed her toothbrush when a friend she was to be traveling with called her at about 10 a.m. and told her to turn on the TV.

The stunning news had a particular resonance for her: Four years earlier her high school trip to Paris had been canceled because of threats against Americans by Algerian terrorists.

She needed to decide quickly about rescheduling her flight because her program was to start Sept. 12. "They were targeting planes with a lot of fuel, and there was the immediacy of the decision and the uncertainty about a long war. And I wasn't sure whether there would be attacks [in Paris] as well," she said.

In addition, her parents are from India, and she was concerned over possible racist reactions against Muslims or people appearing to be Muslim. "I figured I'd be safer in Evanston," she said.

Another Northwestern junior, Rebecca Shaw, 20, of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., dropped out of a program in Seville, Spain, in part because she would feel uncomfortable traveling in Europe.

She said she was turned off by warnings not to loiter in train stations or to put herself in a vulnerable position.

"I would want to travel to France and Italy, but I wouldn't be comfortable going across borders. I'd probably just stay in Seville, and that would take away from the whole experience of studying abroad," she said.

Emily Quirke, a senior at the University of Chicago from Homewood, backed out of an ancient Italian civilization program in Rome for a different kind of reason.

"This is a really important time in American history and culture, and it's an interesting time to ... witness what's going on, the cultural influences being created now. I wanted to be a part of that," she said.

The sense that students abroad might feel they are missing an important time at home is much on the minds of study-abroad officials, who are planning what they call "re-entry" activities for those returning in December.

Such activities are a regular part of study-abroad programs because students often feel a culture shock coming back to America as well as a sense that they have changed and no longer relate the same way to classmates who stayed behind. This year, the disorientation promises to be more wrenching, officials say.

"It's bad enough for students, because they've changed. Now the U.S. has really changed too," said Mark Scheid, executive director of international programs at Rice University in Houston.

Dennis Gordon, a study-abroad coordinator from Santa Clara University in California, said his school was planning an interfaith memorial service for returning students.

Other coordinators said they were sending out campus newspapers to help students overseas feel in touch.

Meanwhile, study-abroad leaders are stressing that the world situation only underscores the importance of study-abroad programs, whose enrollments have been increasing rapidly to a total of more than 130,000 American college students.

"It's clear that the events of Sept. 11 were not caused by too much international understanding," said Scheid.